Research Agencies

AgResearch - Mark Lieffering
Crop and Food Research - John Marshall
Lincoln University - Anita Wreford
Forest Research - Per Nielsen
Canesis Ltd - Gill Worth, Terry Reid
CRL Energy Ltd - Julia Rackley
National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd (NIWA) - Rupert Craggs
Lake Taupo Development Company - Rob McEwen; and AgriGenesis Biosciences - Jerome Demmer

AgResearch - Mark Lieffering

The UK's Anaerobic Digestion & Biogas Specialists - Greenfinch
Ryegrass As An Energy Crop

In 2003 Greenfinch has started a radical research project, with support from the DTI Renewables Programme, to investigate ryegrass as an energy crop. To date, especially in the UK, the attention on energy crops has been towards low moisture, or "woody" biomass which has to be dried before being converted to useful energy by means of a thermal process, e.g. combustion or gasification. A disadvantage of this approach is that most nutrients in the crop are discharged to atmosphere.

The benefits of growing ryegrass to be converted to useful energy through anaerobic digestion are:

The UK has one of the best climates in the world for growing grass.
The high moisture content of grass is not a limiting factor.
Biogas comprises only carbon, hydrogen and oxygen; therefore only CO2 and H2O are discharged to atmosphere.
The wet digestate, containing all the nutrients, is returned to the grassland.
Carbon not transformed to biogas is sequestered into the soil.
It presents a new opportunity for farm diversification without the need to plant new crops.
Farmers already have the harvesting equipment and storage resources.
Farmland could quickly be returned to food production.

A landscape of verdant grass is familiar to the British Isles.

The objectives of the project, which is being carried out in South Shropshire are:

To achieve a minimum biogas yield of 11,000 m3 per hectare per year, which when converted to electricity on a commercial scale would generate 2.5 kWe / ha.
To establish the relationship between the biogas yield and the harvesting cycle.
To confirm that through storage of the grass it is possible to achieve a constant yield of biogas throughout the year.
To assess the mass balance and energy balance for the whole process.

The project, whose outside consultant is the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research (IGER), is divided into two elements:

The harvesting grass from about 1 hectare which is digested in a 20 m3 biogas plant.
32 experimental grass plots, which are monitored and analysed in detail, and digested in a pilot plant.

The field was seeded with Aberdart ryegrass in October 2002 and is being harvested in the first growing season in accordance with normal agricultural practice, achieving up to 5 cuts. After each cut the grassland is fertilised with digestate. Digestate produced during the winter months will be stored for application in the spring. In the second season the harvesting cycle will be adjusted according to the results from the experimental plots in the first season.

32 experimental plots have been established, each measuring 1.0 metres by 10.0 metres. 8 separate experiments will be carried out on the plots with each experiment having 4 plots randomly dispersed amongst the whole.

Crop and Food Research - John Marshall

Big ugly question

Do we go for maximising the yield potential at high energy costs

Or

Do we go for yield at lower energy cost but with a lower yield potential???

Issues

Energy and labour efficiency of pastoral/arable/vegetable cropping systems.
Yield vs. energy balance
Energy efficiency ratio.
Cost of biologically fixed vs. inorganic N levels inputs
Non renewable agricultural inputs
Energy inputs total balance
Production cost unit / kg of product
Pest and disease {cost effectiveness durable control }
Seed material {quality resistance plant species}
Labour inputs {cultivation, planting , production, harvest and transport }
Storage costs {storage loss}

Associated impacts

Water, {Ground and riparian affects}
Soil structure {sustainable productive soils}
Pest and disease epidemiology

Lincoln University - Anita Wreford

Forest Research - Per Nielsen

Canesis Ltd - Gill Worth, Terry Reid

Ecological Footprint Plus

Improving our national prosperity is about optimising our economic return without eroding our natural resource base.

This requires an accurate and detailed understanding of resource flows within our economy.

What is Ecological Footprint Plus?

New Zealand's primary produce industry transforms natural resources (e.g. animals, wool, milk, trees, water and energy) into products and waste. "Ecological Footprint Plus" aims to identify the "ecoefficiencies" within New Zealand's primary processing value chain. By analysing the material flows within a value chain, at the level of companies or processing stages, and combining this with economic data, a comprehensive picture can be built for the eco-efficiencies within the primary production sector of our economy.

Driving this effort is a government aim to identify mechanisms for increasing the size of our economy while avoiding corresponding increases in demands on our national resources. Improving the efficiencies of manufacturing processes or the synergies between different value chains are such mechanisms. This work will pinpoint the areas that would benefit most from improved technology or process design.

This project is funded by the Public Good Science Fund, providing about $1m/yr over the next 6 years, It focuses on the dairy industry, meat, wool and the forestry industry. The project is a collaboration between Canesis (formerly WRONZ), ESR, Forest Research, Massey University and the New Zealand Centre for Ecological Economics (a joint venture between Landcare and Massey university).

What data will we need?

The first stage of the programme is a benchmarking exercise. From companies we are asking for a simple data set based on material inputs against product throughput. As a first cut, for each process or site, we will be requesting data on water, energy and materials e.g. chemicals) usage against primary output (e.g. tonnes of wool) and total amounts of waste generated.

Later, we will need to add further detail. Most of this will be to do with the characteristics of effluents and wastes produced as these are usually not well defined. Some information we will be able to collect from local authorities. More information will be gathered through detailed analysis of effluent constituents and characteristics along with their environmental impact.

Along with the physical data we will be working with industry members to examine the culture and practices that inhibit or promote moves towards sustainability, within their industry.

What we can provide to companies/local authorities/government departments?

With good data representation across the industries we can provide the range and average resource use efficiencies for each industry group. We can provide a company with its individual resource use efficiencies (i.e relating to its site or particular processing stage) for comparison with that of the industry range and average. Using government databases that we have access to, we can provide a company with the total direct and indirect inputs to its processes such as energy and water and total outputs such as carbon dioxide. These go to make up an "ecological footprint" - i.e. how much of the planets resources are required to sustain a company's or sites activities. We can help establish best practice procedures and because we are working with a group representing a number of industries, we can help to identify potential synergies- e.g. where the waste from one industry can be used as a resource in another. We expect that this positive information can be used in a company's marketing activity. By analysing for geographical regions, the study can highlight where there are extreme pressures on certain resources.

The team

Canesis Network, formerly Wool Research, has a long history of process design improvement and product innovation within the wool industry. Dr Gill Worth is an environmental chemist with considerable experience in managing complex projects involving multidisciplinary teams. She has more than a decade of experience developing new processes, novel products and waste management systems for the wool industry. She will coordinate the collection of data from the wool processing industry. She is also responsible for the overall administration of the programme Dr Terry Reid has more than 3 decades of on-farm research around New Zealand and is responsible for the data for on-farm meat and wool production. The programme will also employ the capabilities of a number of other Canesis staff including Mr Denis Maddever (mathematical modelling and statistics) Dr Doug Rankin (pesticide toxicity), Mr Murray Taylor (mechanical engineer), Mr Paul Mesman (process engineer) and Dr Peter Ingham (carpet production)

ESR

Dr Margaret Leonard leads the objective on the meat industry value chain. Margaret has worked as a industrial research scientist (WRONZ), an environmental consultant with experience in the meat processing industry and wastewater processes at ESR. She has 16 years experience in waste management, mostly for industry, and 13 years experience with the Resource Management Act.

Dr Jeff Foote is a systems scientist with an interest in applying holistic and participative methods to sustainable development issues including environmental operations management. Jeff leads the "assessing human drivers in organisational structures" project, which aims to involve workers and managers within primary industries in generating innovative solutions in support of environmental and economic sustainability. Maria Jellie is a social scientist with an interest in action research, applying participative methods in decision making within the environmental sustainability sector. ESR's capabilities in the social area are complemented with those from Dr Roberta Hill and Dr Philip Capper of Web Research.

Forest Research

Forest research has considerable experience in the area of life cycle analysis and energy management. In particular research in the LCA area has been carried out on the New Zealand plantation forest and on Wood Products from wood processing, is manager of FR's wood products and processing unit. He has served on numerous committees associated with the environmental impact of the wood processing industry.

Dr Per Nielsen has 13 years of experience in biomass research. The focus of his research has been on technology development and environmental issues. He has considerable experience in the LCA of energy and waste management systems. He is the science leader in FR's bioenergy group. Also working within the forestry objective are, Dr Barbara Nebel, Ms Carolyn Andersen, Mr Tony Evanson, Mr Ian Nicholas and Dr Louw van Wyk.

NZCEE/Massey University/Landcare

Professor Murray Patterson heads the newly formed NZCEE and has an extensive background in ecological economics and formulation sustainability indicators. His career has involved public policy development across a number of areas including energy, environment, regional development and the labour market. His specialty fields include the development of analytical tools such as models, databases, and techniques for multi-criteria analysis. Murray is particularly interested in developing ways to integrate economic and environmental policy.

Dr Nigel Jollands leads the objective of economic data analysis. Nigels career spans ten years in the energy, resource management and environmental indicators fields. He has worked in regional government as a researcher, central government as a senior policy analyst and at AgReasearch as Team Leader, Ecological Economics. He is currently a Senior Ecological Economist with Landcare Research and a Senior Lecturer at Massey University.

Professor Don Cleland leads the objective on the dairy industry. Don's career in food technology and pioprocess engineering spans more than 20 years. Advising Don is Professor Richard Archer, newly appointed chair of Massey University's Institute of technology and Engineering. Richard has spent a large part of his career working for the dairy industry, firstly for Kiwitech and then as development manager of Fonterratech.


Dr Nigel Jollands, NZCEE	class="data-table"Dr Gill Worth, Canesis	class="data-table"Prof Murray Peterson, NZCEE	class="data-table"Dr Terry Reid, Canesis

class="data-table"Prof Don Cleland, Massey University	class="data-table"Dr Margaret Leonard, ESR	class="data-table"Dr Jeff Foote, ESR	class="data-table"Dr Peter Nielsen, FR

class="data-table"Mr John Gifford, FR

For more information please contact:

Dr Gill Worth, Canesis, 03 3252 421 or Gill.Worth@canesis.co.nz
Dr Nigel Jollands, NZCEE/Landcare 06 356 7154 x 3953
jollandsn@landcareresearch.co.nz
Dr Margaret Leonard, ESR 03 351 6019, Margaret.Leonard@esr.cri.nz
Dr Jeff Foote, ESR 03 351 6019 Jeff.Foote@esr.cri.nz
Dr Terry Reid, Canesis, 03 3252 421 Terry.Reid@canesis.co.nz
Prof Don Cleland, Massey University 06 356 9099 or 06 350 5240
d.cleland@massey.ac.nz
Dr Per Nielsen, Forest Research 07 343 5899 or 07 343 5657
per.nielsen@forestresearch.co.nz

CRL Energy Ltd - Julia Rackley

National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research

Research on low energy systems for treating wastewaters - ponds and wetlands, rock filters

Low cost reactors
Little or no electricity input
Simple operation
Optimise natural treatment processes (driven by solar energy: heat, light)
Anaerobic processes - digestion of wastewater solids
Aerobic processes - photosynthetic oxygenation
- assimilation of pollutants into algal biomass
- disinfection (solar UV)

Research on upgrading dairy shed oxidation ponds

Improving quality of effluent discharged to receiving waters
Irrigation of higher quality effluent (lower pathogen indicator levels)

FRST funded calibration of Advanced Ponds to treat dairy shed effluent
Dairy Insight funded demonstration systems (Northland, Waikato, Southland)

Resource recovery from wastewater

Nutrients (algal biomass - fertilizer, feed supplement)

Dairy Insight funded feed supplement study with Dexcel Water (reuse for washdown)
Dairy Insight funded demonstration Energy (biogas capture and use)

Research on pond-based energy recovery from wastewater

Development of "distributed" energy production combined with pond wastewater treatment technology for New Zealand's rural communities, farms and industries (FRST funded)

1. Pond-based anaerobic digestion and biogas capture

Enhance anaerobic processes to promote conversion of wastewater biomass to biogas
Develop cost-effective and simple pond-based biogas collection system
Develop design tools and models for different waste characteristics and climatic conditions around New Zealand
Demonstration systems (with co-funding)

2. Biogas scrubbing

CO₂ removal from biogas, exhaust/flue gases by scrubbing in Algae Ponds
Develop an algal production system to scrub CO₂ from biogas and exhaust/flue gases
CO₂ limited, so will scrub CO₂O₂ supersaturated so will oxidize corrosive gases (e.g. H₂S)
Develop design tools and models for different waste characteristics and climatic conditions around New Zealand
Demonstration systems (with co-funding)